The Forum Newspaper

Thursday, June 21, 2018

The Gateway to College (GTC) graduated 15 students in May as the program celebrated 10 years at St. Louis Community College. James Gillespie manages the program which is designed to help at risk students earn their GED and earn college credits toward an Associates Degree. This year several students graduated with their high school diploma and their Associates Degree from St. Louis Community College at the same time.

photo credit: Ezra Hightower, Forum Newspaper staff

Journalist and author, Toriano Porter, offered words of encouragement as the graduation celebration's guest speaker. Porter, a St. Louis native, discussed the importance of preparing for greatness and working hard to achieve success.

The Gateway to College program originally came to the STLCC as a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Since 2008, GTC has graduated numerous students from surrounding school districts who may not have finished high school, let alone earned a college degree. For more information about this program please contact James Gillespie at 314-513-4160 or jgillespie@stlcc.edu.

Wednesday, April 11, 2018

Monday, April 9, 2018

Spring 2018 Global Studies Symposium

Student participants of the Italian

studies learning community will
present, authentic foods from
Tuscany and the Ligurian coast of
Italy will be served by the Florissant Valley
dietetic students, displays and other
presentations around global studies
topics will be presented.

Friday, February 23, 2018

by Tiffany Joiner and Ralph Schaffer

The Florissant Valley (FV) Theatre Program opened the spring semester with a production of the highly-acclaimed play, “Waiting for Lefty” directed by Professor Chris Stephens. The play takes place during a meeting of taxi drivers during the Great Depression and deals with workers’ rights. They have had enough of receiving the short end of the stick, and the only option that interests them is a strike.

The production is compiled of six different vignettes and flashbacks from the characters, seemingly unrelated. The only common factors they each share are their jobs, and they all havea story to tell. The play dives headfirst into burning topics such as fatal irresponsibility, collective bargaining and exploitation of the masses. Through the angst and frustration the characters face, burning questions keep the audience guessing.

Lefty is a union organizer who is scheduled to meet with the union workers to discuss life-changing options that each employee can settle on. The union’s corrupt leader Harry Fatt does everything he can to discourage it, and the mysterious absence of Lefty Costello doesn’t bode well for the future strikers. After hearing the heart-wrenching tales of the hard-working cab drivers, each story is dramatized before the audience before transitioning seemingly effortlessly back into the union meeting. Agate Keller (Tylan Mitchell) takes the stage and demands immediate action. When word comes that Lefty has been found “with a bullet in his head,” the union joins Keller in chanting “STRIKE, STRIKE, STRIKE!!!”

The playwright, Clifford Odets, originally set the play on a bare stagewith hardly any props, a departure from a traditional theater production.

“It doesn’t all happen in a realistic place in time..I think that’s a really interesting thing to put on stage,” said Stephens. “...the audience is treated as though they are in the union hall and as if they’re fellow New York City cab drivers.”

Actors, mostly current FV students, come to the stage from the audience seats adding an interesting feel to the experience.“Waiting for Lefty” may have been written 83 years ago, but Stephens suggests that it still has a relevant message nearly a century later in Missouri as well as the United States.

The next play, “Constellations”, directed by Professor Dan Betzler, opens in April. For more information contact the Fischer Theater at 314-513-4488 or visit stlcc.edu/fv/theatre.

Tuesday, February 20, 2018

Outside The Lines

By Ralph Schaffer

On February 15, the Art Department at St. Louis Community College-Florissant Valley hosted the Closing Reception and Awards Ceremony for its 25th Annual High School Art Exhibit.

FV Art Department faculty selected over 30 pieces for this juried exhibit on display at the campus Contemporary Art Gallery in the Instructional Resources Building. The evening included tours of the Art Department and Labs in the Humanities Building. Art work from the young artists included a variety of mediums like acrylic, ceramics, graphite, oil pastel, PhotoShop, watercolor and clay.

“It is very crucial that high school students are
recognized,” says Deb Jenkins, gallery director.

Some of the work exhibited also challenged the “rules” of
fine art that college art students often get drilled on in their studies. “High school artists tend to be a little less fearless,” said
Jenkins. “It’s fun to see high school students breaking the rules (of
art)."

Tuesday, November 21, 2017

Check out the Forum Newspaper's new "What's Your Flo?" question for the month of October. The question is based around the theme of Halloween. We asked students around campus "What's your favorite scary movies and why?" Check it out.